


The Fare

by Littlebluejay_hidingpeanuts



Series: Charlie [1]
Category: Original Works
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-14
Updated: 2019-12-14
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:35:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21786856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Littlebluejay_hidingpeanuts/pseuds/Littlebluejay_hidingpeanuts
Summary: Just a normal everyday cab ride.
Series: Charlie [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1570552
Kudos: 1





	The Fare

**Author's Note:**

> Un-betaed

I’ve been driving a cab since I was 19 years old, two weeks after getting my driver’s license. No one really made a fuss. After all, my bad driving was basically indistinguishable from everyone else’s. The job wasn’t that bad. Minimum wage, horrid hours, bad customers, and worse, even fatal, job conditions. The older drivers got above minimum wage and they owned their own cabs. I suppose they were paid more to keep them with the company, but it just allowed them to buy out quicker. It’s a nice thing to own your own car, but that luxury fades quickly when you’re cleaning up a backseat saturated in puke, spilt alcohol, and other bodily fluids. It’s a disgusting job, and I have to do it. 

I was somewhere near the Rockefeller Center just enjoying my AC watching the people sweating bullets running back from lunch when a fare jumped into the back. It was a businessman dressed in a nice suit. I didn’t think he was a lawyer. He had no briefcase. Maybe a higher-up, a manager or something. I asked him, “Where to?”

He replied, “Drive.”

I asked him, “Where to?” 

“Drive.” 

“Ok. You got it.” I started the meter and figured I’d drive straight and turn when I had to, unless the fare said different. It was awhile before I noticed something strange. He had been looking down at something in his lap. I thought it was a phone, but he shifted and I saw it was a gun. “No. No guns. There are no guns allowed in my cab.” I pulled over to the side of the road and sat there, glaring at him in the rear view mirror. “Get out of my cab.”

The Fare didn’t move. He just sat for a moment looking at his weapon. Then he pulled out a yellow handkerchief and began cleaning the gun. Meticulously each piece of the gun was wiped clean. Even the hollow point bullets. My cop brother-in-law would be proud I recognized the weapon. It was a wonder he didn’t lose one of them in the black hole that was the grimy floor of my cab. Splotches of red and black dotted the handkerchief. I couldn’t help thinking this guy was a little psycho. 

He didn’t speak, and I didn’t move. With a sharp click the magazine snapped into the handgrip. Dear Lord, please get this psycho out of my cab. I don’t want to die today. My wife is making lasagna. This weekend my daughter’s fifth-grade play is about healthy food. She’s a prune. Please Lord, let me see my baby play a prune. 

“Turn around.” Damn. Dear Lord, you don’t listen when my mother-in-law comes, and you’re not listening now. I turned around in my seat. 

He sat back in the seat,still staring at his gun. He was holding it lightly in both hands, as if it were precious or something. Yet, maybe he was weighing his options. I hoped he chose an option advantageous to me and my bodily health. The barrel was pointed straight at me. I pleaded, “I won’t charge you for the ride.”

”What’s your name?”

”George Harrison Lorenzo. No relation.”

His gaze came up to my eyes, ”To who?” He was not teasing. The blankness of his expression caused my throat to clench.

“George Harrison.” I started breathing, “The Beatles. My mother loves the Beatles.”

”Right, right.”

Now that we’d had this “friendly” conversation, I calmed down enough to look away from the 9mm Glock. Nice gun. Nice bullets. They left a nice little entry hole and made the back of your head look like a bomb had gone off. I sighed. At least with me facing him, he was being polite enough to give my mother an open casket at the viewing.

My knee was bobbing up and down. A bad habit, I know, for a driver to have. Don’t want to have an accident because I tapped the brake. This man had no such bad habits. Calm. Quiet. I found him scary as hell, but you wouldn’t know it from looking at him. His black suit looked soft and non-threatening. The dark grey tie had matching thin black lines. He looked thin and small. Maybe he was muscular and maybe he wasn’t, what do I know? That suit had hid a firearm. Could’ve hid a lot more things in there. 

His blond hair was cut in a businessmen style. I suppose women would have called him chiseled or distinguished looking. Our eyes met again. The plastic partition between us gave me no feelings of being safe from those blue eyes. Navy blue. They were dark, deep, and blank. He had been looking me over as I had been doing to him. I shivered and looked away, “Please.” I don’t quite know what I was asking. 

He moved, and my eyes shifted back over the seat to him. The gun had disappeared. He had put something in the cash box. He looked at me once more, then left the car. We’d only gone down the block and turned.

I drove out of there and almost clipped a parked car. I panicked at each red light, thinking he might jump back in. At the garage I parked. Methodically I did my chores. Every time someone walked past I jumped. I went home and laid down for the rest of the day. Everyone asked me what was wrong, from my wife to the boys at the poker game that night. I didn’t know what to say. I was so out of it. I lost 200 dollars.

The next morning I cleaned the cab cleaner than it had ever been. Including the day it came off the line. I know, I was procrastinating. I was afraid. Afraid a man in a suit might be carrying a weapon. I found $27.58 in loose change. Scrubbing the mats I think I finally got rid of that funky smell in the trunk. $1,000 was wedged in the cash box. I’d been so wigged out I had forgotten to empty it! The man’s fare had only been about $20.00. Most of which had come from sitting there at the end.

Joe, the manager, did some fake gagging on the cleaning supply fumes as he came over. He said, “The police are here. They want to talk to you. They told me they were asking all the drivers.” I went to the office.

“Have you seen this man?” The officer handed me a photograph. “He is wanted in an investigation involving the death of a foreign ambassador and two of his people. A witness saw him get into a cab.”

I shook my head no, “Sorry.” I handed the picture back.

“So, why are you cleaning the cab? It’s not like it rained yesterday.”

“I take pride in my cab. I always keep it clean.” Joe snorted behind me. “I think it gets me better tips.” I nodded to Joe and returned to my cab. I hit the streets, changed my route, and prayed that that man would not bother me again. In person or otherwise. The police had asked me if I knew where he was. I think they were suspicious of me or something. I thanked the Lord I couldn’t give them an answer. 

Late the next day by Yankee Stadium, I swear the answer was delivered by a higher power. He was sitting in my front passenger seat. “Thank you for your help yesterday, Mr. Lorenzo. Turn left up here.”

**Author's Note:**

> Constructive critiques are welcome, but politeness is a must.


End file.
